Legal Secretary Career in London

PA and general secretarial jobs in the main market are different from Legal Secretarial jobs in many respects.

Legal Secretary Jobs in London

The nature of the legal industry requires far more attention to finer detail than is required in many other market sectors.

It is also necessary to have a sound knowledge of the forms associated with the respective legal area in which a legal secretary is employed (e.g. Conveyancing, Litigation, CoCo etc. ). There will also be a variety of contracts, writs, and court papers etc. which need to be prepared in a very specific way and processed according to strict protocol.

A legal secretary requires all the generic skills of a main market PA or secretary such as good MS Office skills, diary management, sound typing and audio transcription – for legal jobs typing at 65 Wpm is often required at the hiring stage. In addition to this there are the skills specifically related to the legal sector which must be mastered.

Thus to become a legal secretary you need a good grounding in the skills of a PA/Secretary but in addition you need legal industry specific training.

Legal Secretary Courses and Qualifications

The main benchmarks for legal secretarial training are the CILEX Level 2 and Level 3 qualifications.

CILEX has a Royal Charter and was founded in the mid 1800’s and is the recognised focal point for training support staff within the legal sector. It is the only Institute recognised officially across the legal industry.

CILEx Legal Secretary Training Courses

The CILEX secretarial qualifications do not provide generic secretarial skills training and so you will need this before you can embark on CILEX training as you will struggle to achieve the necessary speed to complete assignments.

It is therefore recommended that you study your own existing skill base to decide whether it is better to embark directly on CILEX training or to obtain good quality general secretarial training first.